A megaphone, speaking-trumpet, bullhorn, blowhorn or loud hailer is a portable, usually hand-held, funnel cone-shaped device whose application is to amplify a person's voice towards a targeted direction. This is accomplished by channeling the sound through a funnel, which also serves to match the acoustic impedance of the voice cords to the air. The natural human voice tends to spread evenly in all directions, whereas when it is sent through a megaphone, the sound is concentrated in a given direction and the coupling of its energy to the air optimised. The trade-off is that if a listener is to the side, it is more difficult to hear what is being said. An electronic megaphone amplifies sound to a higher decibel level. It consists of a microphone an amplifier and a loudspeaker.
Megaphones have been used for many years to project the voice of the user. Many megaphones have a generally conically shaped horn configuration, with a relatively small mouth opening which flares outwardly to the outermost broadcast end. Although various powered-type megaphones have been developed, the simplest megaphone merely relies on the horn effect to transmit the sound of the user outwardly from the user. At public sports events, the spectators show their approval/disapproval of occurrences in play actions on a more or less continuous basis. The “home” field affect is well recognized in sporting events, wherein the home crowd which is generally the largest percentage of the spectators, can affect the outcome by verbally “getting into” the game. Thus, the cheering by the home spectators can psychologically affect the attitude and play of the home team. At such spectator events, one may see spectators forming their programs into a horn shaped configuration to more fully project their voice with that of the other spectators.
When people attend various events and in particular athletic events people show their support by making noise for their teams. One thing people do is roll up pieces of paper or cup their hands together to try and project their voices toward the field of play. Some times this approach does not work very well as the people that cup their hands together didn't accomplish much and the individuals that use rolled up paper ended up with a mess that they occasionally pick up. Sometimes individuals keep the rolled up paper in their hands tightly rolled up to hold on to it and not get it dirty by laying it on the ground or bleachers. There remains a need for a device that people can used to show support for their teams that can be conveniently stored when not being used.
Various designs of megaphones are used today. One design described in U.S. Pat. No. D559,830 to Lintern is a foldable megaphone. This mega contains handles at each edge. It appears that a person uses the handles to fold the megaphone and bring the ends of the megaphone together.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,940,984 to Carpenter describes a megaphone having: a microphone assembly including means for attachment to a user adjacent to the user's mouth for hands-free operation; a body pack provided with means for attachment to the users body and incorporating an output horn; and a flexible cable connecting the microphone assembly to the body pack.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,829 to Hardt describes a collapsible and portable megaphone formed from a self-supporting flexible plastic sheet. The sheet is wrapped with overlapping side edges to form a horn shaped member. The overlapping edges are releasably interlocked by edge slots and interconnecting edge arms. A separate mouthpiece has a tube, which telescopes into the narrow mouth end of the horn and has an outer shaped end for coupling to the user's lips. The plastic sheet may be rolled into a compact tubular roll. The mouthpiece is placed over the roll to maintain the rolled configuration for storage and transport. The horn sheets can be readily mass-produced by stamping and the mouthpiece by molding.
United States Patent Application 20060266579 to Stern et al. describes an inflatable acoustic megaphone that can be inflated into a substantially frustoconical shape for use and deflated and folded into a relatively small space when not in use, optionally providing text and/or graphics on its surface that can be used for advertising or promotions.
Even though there are many designs for the megaphone, there still remains a need for a megaphone that is storable on the arm of the person using the megaphone.